ts.

XVIII.

The king, relying on Petion's promises, and the number of troops with
which the palace was surrounded, had seen the assemblage of the mob
without uneasiness.

The assault suddenly made on his abode had surprised him in complete
security. Retired with the queen, Madame Elizabeth, and his children to
the interior apartments on the side of the garden, he had heard the
distant thunder of the crowd without expecting that it was so soon to
burst on him. The voices of his frightened servants, flying in all
directions, the noise of doors burst open and falling on the floors, the
shouts of the people as they approached, threw alarm suddenly amongst
the family party, which had met in the king's bed-chamber. The prince,
confiding, by his look, his wife, sister, and children to the officers
and women of the household who surrounded them, went alone to the _Salle
du Conseil_. He there found the faithful Marshal de Mouchy, who did not
hesitate to offer the last days of his long life to his master; M.
d'Hervilly, the commandant of the Constitutional Horse Guard, disbanded
a few days previously; the governor Acloque, commandant of the battalion
of the faubourg St. Marceau, at first a moderate republican, then,
overcome by the private virtues of Louis XVI., was his friend, and ready
to die for him; three brave grenadiers of the battalion of the faubourg
St. Martin, Lecrosnier, Bridau, and Gosse, who alone remained at their
post of the interior on the general defection, and ready to protect the
king with their bayonets, men of the people, strangers at court, rallied
round him by the sole sentiment of duty and affection, only defending
the man in the king.

At the moment the king entered this apartment, the doors of the adjacent
room, called the _Salle des Nobles_, were dashed in by the blows of the
assailants. The king rushed forward to meet the danger. The door-panels
fell at his feet, lance heads, iron-shod sticks, spikes were thrust
through the opening. Cries of fury, oaths, imprecations accompanied the
blows of the axe. The king, in a firm voice, ordered two devoted _valets
de chambre_, who accompanied him, Hue, and de Marchais, to open the
doors. "What have I to fear in the midst of my people?" said the prince,
boldly advancing towards the assailants.

These words, his advancing step, the serenity of his brow, the respect
of so many ages for the sacred person of the king, suspended the
impetuosity of the ringlea